Posted on 01/17/2009 3:04:35 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Lab-'evolved' Molecules Support Creation
by Brian Thomas, M.S.
Scientists attempting to demonstrate random evolution in the laboratory have found something entirely different: evidence supporting creation.
Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute coaxed an RNA-like long chain molecule, called R3C, to copy itself. The journal New Scientist stated that Joyce’s “laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube.” But it “evolved” only after “Joyce's team created” it. “After further lab tinkering,” Joyce’s colleague Tracy Lincoln “redesigned the molecule” so that it would replicate more effectively.1
What Joyce and his team actually discovered was how difficult it is and how much outside intervention is needed to get even these simple RNA-like molecules to form chains (which only happened when they were provided with a supply of pre-manufactured chemical “links”). The creation model—not a religious argument from ignorance, but a scientific inference from the data—is a viable historical model that would predict that the chemicals and processes of life are exactly as Joyce and other origin of life researchers find them: complex and specified.
The evolution model continues to meet a dead end with “life in a test tube” research. Even after selecting from 288 mutant molecules the ones that replicate the fastest, the scientists knew of no natural mechanism that can add new functions to those selected. “To mimic biology, a molecule must gain new functions on the fly, without laboratory tinkering. Joyce says he has no idea how to clear this hurdle with his team’s RNA molecule.”1 The potential for change for these molecules, like any machine, is limited to its maximum design potential unless retooled by an outsider.
The insistence that this laboratory work shows any kind of blind evolutionary process contradicts the fact that these research efforts were not “blind,” but directed and purposeful. Joyce even admitted that his molecules do not “have open-ended capacity for Darwinian evolution.”1 His molecules have limited potential because all molecules have limited potential. Indeed, certain ribonucleotides that are linked together to make RNA cannot form naturally in solutions. Not only the molecules themselves, but their environment limits the potential for any evolutionary progression. Even after they are carefully formed, they are very fragile. Just add water, oxygen, or light, and all the “evolutionary progress” of these molecules is destroyed. Surely, life cannot come from a purely natural cause.
Michael Robertson of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told New Scientist, “The origin of life on Earth is an historical problem that we’re never going to be able to witness and verify.”1 The question of origins cannot be investigated by direct experiment, but it can be explored by making valid inferences from an array of evidence.2
Thus, both the facts of science regarding the extreme difficulty of fashioning molecules that merely imitate select functions of life, as well as the biblical account that records the beginning of all things, unite as evidence for creation.
References
1. Callaway, E. Artificial molecule evolves in the lab. New Scientist. Posted on newscientist.com January 8, 2009, accessed January 9, 2009.
2. Thomas, B. Protocell Research: On the Verge of…a Dead End. ICR News. Posted on icr.org September 16, 2008, accessed January 14, 2009.
Was I talking about you when I said, "interestingly ignorant"? I was not aware.
Who’s metmon? Another impersonator?
I hope it does better than the last one.
For the record, I didn’t see your name in any of their posts.
Throw a stone over a fence and the dog that yelps is the one that got hit.
No no no, svcw! You’re new to these threads (evident by your first post) so I’ll let you in on the dirty little secret here...
Many of the creationists here play this game where they are put-upon by the world and they are super nice and forgiving and all that good stuff they are supposed to be. On the other side, those who accept current scientific theories and facts (ie, evolutionists) are super mean and horrible atheist liberal nazis.
In this case, editor-surveyor took a swipe at DevNet with his link back to DevNet’s comment, calling it ignorant. You, I believe, made an innocent comment back not fully understanding past history or the “rules.” You are forgiven.
Your uncle and editor-surveyor would become fast friends here,as he believes in a literal bible young earth model and such things as the Grand Canyon was created in mere minutes or days.
On a side note, you’ll also note that while several folks are making fun of DevNet’s observation about nucleotides forming in “solution” in the human body, no one has been able to directly answer his question.
Get used to that too. Have a nice night!
Post 15 links directly to my post and the content of 15 is nothing more than a personal attack.
I do find it very interesting that you have differing standards of behavior for people depending on if they agree with you or not - smacks of moral relativism if you ask me.
It is an attempt to try make me react in an emotional way so that I violate the rules of this site.
One has already told me that they will do what it takes to make me slip up so I get my account banned. Propenets of open debate they aren’t.
Keep reading. Apparenently, DevNet is not the only one incapable of distinguishing between abiogenesis experiments and the human body, and man prompting the assembly in solution as opposed to being assembled through complex biochemical reactions within the body.
From the article....
The insistence that this laboratory work shows any kind of blind evolutionary process contradicts the fact that these research efforts were not “blind,” but directed and purposeful. Joyce even admitted that his molecules do not “have open-ended capacity for Darwinian evolution.”1 His molecules have limited potential because all molecules have limited potential. Indeed, certain ribonucleotides that are linked together to make RNA cannot form naturally in solutions. Not only the molecules themselves, but their environment limits the potential for any evolutionary progression. Even after they are carefully formed, they are very fragile. Just add water, oxygen, or light, and all the “evolutionary progress” of these molecules is destroyed. Surely, life cannot come from a purely natural cause.
“Even after they are carefully formed, they are very fragile. Just add water, oxygen, or light, and all the “evolutionary progress” of these molecules is destroyed.”
Water and O2 exist in the human body, yes?
Who insisted that? Why isn't this a classic strawman argument?
Hype and hope in a test tube. Personally I liked the electric arc in the big glass vessel better. Pop! Zap! just doesn’t happen in some cloudy soup.
And let’s not forget that even the Evos themselves can’t imagine the core processes of the cell emerging in a step-wise fashion:
‘Core processes may have emerged together
as a suite, for we know of no organism today that
lacks any part of the suite … The most obscure
origination of a core process is the creation of the
first prokaryotic cell. The novelty and complexity
of the cell is so far beyond anything inanimate in
the world of today that we are left baffled’
Kirschner, M.W. and Gerhart, J.C., The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2005.
We aren’t talking about the “Evos” we are talking about the creationists. That you have to attempt to change the subject doesn’t exactly show confidence in your original argument.
Creationists actually see this laboratory experiment as evidence of creation and deities?
Sorry, but your capacity for self-delusion has just hit a new high.
The whole experiment was conducted in an effort to explain how life supposedly emerged from blind evolutionary processes. Did you somehow fall under the impression that they were trying to demonstrate how life might have got started via intelligent design?
...talk about a gang call!
: )
Nothing like the truth.
The conditions (to include the RNA) that made the experiment possible were intelligently designed.
Wait. Eventually SOMETHING is bound to happen!
I mean, hey, after a few billion years those monkeys are certain to have figured out how to write something millions of times more complex than a Beethoven symphony at least once!
Well, that is if you start out with some monkeys...and a pen...and paper...and instruments...
Yup...just like the chemist observed, even the lab experiments themselves require intelligent design to get off the ground.
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